The Fine Art Of Letting Go

Hey everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 350.

Feels like a milestone of some sort.

So today I wanted to talk about the art of letting go or the fine art of letting go and yeah this is definitely not an art that I have mastered.

In fact the last six months have been this very deep immersion for me.

Work,

Family,

Practice and without a lot of letting go.

So it's almost to the contrary.

I feel like I've been holding on in some moments kind of for dear life and that sort of fingernail sliding down the cliff holding on you know and it's really taken its toll.

So the last couple of weeks I've been slowing down letting go a little bit and I thought I would share what I'm learning in the hopes that it will be helpful.

So with letting go we're sitting squarely within the four noble truths.

Suffering,

The cause of suffering,

The remedy,

The path and the first noble truth is that suffering exists.

Things don't go our way,

There's too much work,

Not enough time,

We lose,

Our clients go to jail or get deported or don't get what they want or need and then we may feel that as our own loss which in a way it is.

So this also happens for me in the context of teaching.

I want things to go a certain way,

I want to be useful to people,

I want to be helpful,

Maybe move folks along on the path just a little bit and sometimes it feels like that's happening,

Sometimes not and when I don't feel like it is then I feel unhappy,

I want things to feel right but they're slightly off.

So first noble truth,

Second noble truth is that there's a cause to this suffering,

Tanha,

That kind of clenching,

Clinging,

Wanting things to be other than they are and then the third,

The third noble truth which is that we can just let go,

We can just let go and it doesn't mean letting go of the good work that we're doing,

Not at all,

But it does mean letting go of that,

That thirst,

That tanha,

That clenching,

That wanting things to be different in the moment,

Right?

And still get up the next day and work really hard and do the good work that we're doing and then the fourth noble truth is the path.

So I was reading a piece from Everything is Teaching Us,

A collection of teachings by the Venerable Ajahn Chah and if you know who Ajahn Chah is,

He was a Thai forest master of the last century and he was a teacher to many of my teachers.

So and he's talking about nibbana or freedom or liberation and he wrote,

And I'm paraphrasing this slightly,

What is nibbana or liberation all about?

It means not grasping,

It means not giving meaning to things,

It means letting go,

Making offerings and doing meritorious deeds,

Observing moral precepts and meditating on loving kindness and all these are for getting rid of defilements and craving for making the mind empty,

Empty of self-cherishing,

Empty of concepts of self and other and for not wishing for anything,

Not wishing to be or become anything.

This is my picture of letting go.

So starting from the middle of what Ajahn Chah is saying,

Making offerings and doing meritorious deeds,

Observing moral precepts.

You know,

I really feel like we're doing this a lot in the law already and maybe even more than we realize.

You know,

Every time someone takes on a pro bono matter,

Goes the extra mile for a client,

Doesn't charge somebody,

Undertakes something that they know they can't win or that their client can't win and yet,

You know,

We put our heart and soul into it anyway.

Every time we take that extra time to be with our students,

To tune into their concerns,

Their worries,

Their confusion with patience,

With love,

This seems to me to fall within the practice of making offerings and doing meritorious deeds.

And I feel like we shouldn't miss this.

And for me anyway,

I can say it's easy to miss.

You know,

In the stress and strain of getting things done,

Managing everything on my plate,

It's easy to miss.

So the other day I was sitting with a friend,

Dharma buddy,

A woman I consider very wise.

She's 10 years my senior and I really see her wisdom,

Her generosity and she reflected back to me that she sees those in me as well.

And that's even like weird for me to say that to y'all,

Right?

Like I almost feel like I shouldn't say that.

And it wasn't easy for me to take in,

But I had this moment of,

Oh,

Wait a minute,

Take that in.

And once I did,

It felt good.

It felt good.

And she helped me to remember not to miss all the offerings and the merit that we're generating.

You know,

Just being of service in the law and in our lives.

And same with observing moral precepts.

Maybe it goes without saying because we have a code of ethics in the law,

You know,

But non-harming,

Not stealing,

Not speaking unwholesomely,

Not breaking or even bending the precept to do no harm with our sexuality,

Not intoxicating ourselves to the point of clouding our minds.

I hear from a lot of lawyers who say that,

You know,

These are the baseline.

And for sure they're aspirational,

But they're the baseline,

Right?

And plenty of us are practicing with loving kindness.

Maybe not enough,

Speaking for myself,

But it's there.

We're working with it.

And then Ajahn Chah says something even more nuanced,

I think.

He's also pointing at letting go.

He's saying,

Which is that third noble truth,

He's saying the observation of the moral precepts,

The doing of merit,

Loving kindness are all for a purpose.

For letting go,

For getting rid of defilements and craving,

For making the mind empty of self-cherishing and of concepts of self and other,

And for not wishing for anything,

Not wishing to be or become anything.

So this is really the opposite of a fingernail sliding down the cliff sense that I have had of holding on for dear life.

And it comes with practice,

At least in my experience.

And it's not only,

For me,

The practice of meditation,

But it's also the practice of courage.

To get rid of the defilements,

You know,

Greed,

Aggression,

Confusion,

To embody a more equanimous life,

To live with ease.

First,

I think we have to see the defilements,

The craving,

The desire for reassurance and adulation,

The selfing,

The wishing to be or become someone who,

Whatever,

Fill in the blanks,

Or to not be someone who,

Fill in that blank.

For me,

It takes courage anyway,

Because I don't necessarily want to see my busyness,

My grasping,

My desire to become,

My sense of having to fix the world,

Hold up the whole world.

You know,

I want to know myself as peaceful and easeful,

And not as someone who strives and grasps and is full of desire.

And so it's crucial,

Not easy,

Not comfortable,

For me,

Anyway,

To look and to see.

And Ajahn Chah puts that this way,

When the mind starts grasping at things and making a big deal out of them,

You have to stop it.

I love the way he says that,

Like it's so easy.

It will argue with you,

But you have to put your foot down.

Stay in the middle as the mind comes and goes.

Put sensual indulgence away to one side.

Put self-torment away to the other side.

Love to one side,

Hate to the other side,

Happiness to one side,

Suffering to the other side.

Remain in the middle without letting the mind go in either direction.

I don't know why,

But I just,

That really resonates for me.

So it's the definition of letting go that I'm working with right now.

And yeah,

I hope it's resonant for you and useful for all of you.

Okay,

So let's sit.

And taking a comfortable posture,

Being intentional about your posture,

Letting the body settle in,

Relaxing.

What measure of relaxation is available to you?

Whatever that is,

Accept it,

And then locate the breath in the body,

Or bring the attention to the sounds in your environment,

Whichever object of awareness feels most supportive to you today,

And then attending to the breath or the sound.

And as Ajahn Chah says,

When the mind starts grasping at things,

Making a big deal out of them,

Just stop,

Stay in the middle as the mind comes and goes.

Whenever the mind gets lost,

Runs off,

Convinces you that there are more important things to do than meditate,

Like planning or worrying,

Just put all of that down and come back to the breath or to the sound.

Relaxing just a little bit more if that's available,

Relaxing the body,

Relaxing the mind,

Really letting go of anything that's arising.

And then letting go of the meditation,

Fluttering the eyes open if the eyes were closed,

Taking a few conscious deep breaths.

Thank you all for being here today.

It was wonderful to sit with you.

This wake-up call seems like a good place to take a short break.

I'm going to be traveling until mid-June,

So I'm going to take a break while traveling,

And I'll miss you.

I might even send a note,

Because I know I'm going to miss you a lot,

But this will be the last wake-up call until June 16th.

Take care,

My friends,

And I will see you then.

Be well.